


Cloudy with a chance of sunshine

by PinkPunk010



Series: When It Rains [6]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Magical Creatures, case life, one shots, parenting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-11
Updated: 2018-11-17
Packaged: 2019-08-22 05:14:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16591505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PinkPunk010/pseuds/PinkPunk010
Summary: Life may be a little crazy, what with a war, children, and a case full of magical creatures that sometimes break out and raid their house for shiny trinkets, but Newt and Tina Scamander wouldn't have it any other way (honestly)*Oneshots and short stories for the When it Rains verse and beyond*





	1. Rules of Case Parenting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Dougal is not a suitable babysitter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on the tumblr prompt: Maybe a Newt and Tina misunderstanding/fight on different parenting styles (decisions on interacting with creatures or playing in the case or something)? Then some fluff of making up afterwards. Hehe. Thanks if you're up to it!

Tina let herself into the house, rolling her neck at the relief of being out of the dismal weather and back in the house. She paused, listening carefully for any sense of the whereabouts of her somewhat chaotic family. It was quiet, the only noise the creaking of the pipes and the whistle of the wind through the loose window pane at the top of the children’s floor. 

She glanced at her watch, a little surprised that Newt wasn’t entertaining the children in the kitchen while creating something actually nutritious for them. However, she was also incredibly aware of how easy it was to lose time in the garden. She headed straight out to the bottom of the garden, stepping over blocks of wood and the new toy brooms that Diane and Perseus had sent over. 

At the bottom of the garden, there was a gate and what appeared to be a straight run down to a forest. Tina smiled as she let herself through, already unbuttoning her coat, ready to hang on the hook just inside of the expanse that appeared, as if an invisible curtain had been pulled back.  
It was always warm in the case, a gentle tilt down to the various enclosures and environments that were suitable for their creatures, and a welcome relief from the wintery bite in the world beyond. 

“Hello?” Tina called out, glancing around for a pair of redheads and dark one, trying to work out which way Newt might have taken their children. On balance of probability, she struck forwards towards the safest of their creatures (the five X creatures were kept in the actual case, just inside the doorway), sidestepping the ever determined giant dung beetles as they shifted to their own habitat, in the north corner. “Newt? Kids?”

She passed the bowtruckle wood into what Newt had affectionately dubbed the “kids zone”, in that it was an expanse in sight of the potting shed, with the mildly irritating but essentially harmless creatures that wouldn’t be liable to eat or poison their children. She glanced around, smiling at the prospect of seeing her family, but Newt was no-where to be seen. 

Sitting at the base of the niffler tree were two dust covered and scrapping children, with direcrawls and nifflers swarming over the edge of the blanket. Dougal sat above them, carefully reaching in and moving the two infants apart slightly, to no avail as Helena leant back towards her brother. 

“Mama!” Helena cried, spotting Tina first. She dumped her brother and crawled towards Tina as fast as her little arms and legs could carry her. Tina ran forward and scooped her up before her hands could meet the sharp stones that formed the edge of the next enclosure. Corvin followed quickly behind, chattering to himself, Hardy scurrying after him. 

Corvin wasn’t quite as fast as his sister, and let out a plaintive cry, kneeling back and grabbing at the edge of his mothers coat. Tina adjusted Helly to lift Corv up as well, visually checking as much of them as she could as they each attempted to grab the same lock of hair at the nape of her neck and a small tussle broke out in her arms. 

“Hey, stop it,” she ordered, jostling them to get their attention. “Mama has more than enough hair to go round, as you two prove daily. Now mama kisses!”

Their argument forgotten, both of her children were grinning and planting wet, open mouthed infant kisses on her cheeks. Corvin’s chubby fist found a lock of her hair, and he settled his dark, fluffy head into the crook of her neck, crooning like the little baby bird they had named him for. Helena, a little older and having recently found her voice, chattered away incoherently, one hand tangled up in her neckscarf to tug on the necklace that always hung there. 

“Where’s Papa?” Tina asked her infants, twisting her head to glance at the open (and clearly empty) door to the potting shed. Newt always came out to greet her, even if he had to quickly press a kiss to her cheek and pass of childcare while he ran off to deal with something pressing. They blinked back up at her and looked around. It would have been comical if something hadn’t made itself abundantly clear to her.

He wasn’t there. 

In fact, he wasn’t anywhere she could see. 

“Newt?” She called out, a note of tension in her voice. If he had left their toddlers to their own devices, she was going to kill him. There was an answering caw, but no cheery hullo from her husband behind the occamy. 

“Where is he Dougal?” Tina asked their most stalwart resident (and sometimes, additional child), a hot flare of anger twisting in her chest that he wasn’t within calling distance. Dougal made a complicated hand gesture and pointed south. 

Grindylows. A creature environment they had put far enough away from the safe zone that Aurie couldn’t toddle her way into deep water by accident. It was hollering distance. The little flare burned a little brighter. She adjusted the toddlers on her hips and marched forward. 

She found him, drying himself off with his wand in one hand, and a towel in the other, a puddle of water beneath his feet. His eyes brighten when he saw her, his lips turning up – but faltered when he saw the stormcloud in her eyes. She was so mad, she could have hexed him where he stood. He’d left them alone? In the case? Leaving them alone in the lounge while he popped into the kitchen was one thing – but this was just a level of stupid she should have expected. 

“Tina?” He said warily, reaching forward in a silent offer to take one of the kids. She pulled them back and glared. 

“Why did I walk into the case to find our children on their own?” She asked dangerously, eyes glinting darkly. 

“Dougal was watching them,” Newt replied in confusion. She wanted to hit him. Or hex him. The number of dangerous and poisonous things they had in the case, and he had left their two toddlers in the care of a slightly less dangerous creature. Their two were both at a stage of hand to mouth, and it was only a matter of time until Helena tried to eat a doxy or a fairy and got herself a mouthful of bad. 

“They are two and three respectively!” Tina pointed out hotly, “And I swear to Merlin Newt, you can’t treat Dougal like their older brother! I love him and Jingyi, you know I do – but they are not suitable babysitters for our kids! Dougal can’t exactly shout, can he – what if something went wrong?”

Newt blinked owlishly. “Infant demiguise are-” he started, before Tina cut him off with a reminder that their children were human, not demiguise. 

“They were fine,” He pointed out in exasperation, throwing his hands up in the air and sending the towel flying. “I had spells set up so that nothing could get in, and so they couldn’t get out. I charmed their blanket so I’d know if one of them left it, and Dougal has kept an entire nest of occamy from choking on more than one occasion. They entertain themselves and I needed to stop the leak in the Grindylow tank! I thought they’d be safer with Dougal than with me where there was the possibility of the spells bursting and I accidently drowned my children!”

He drew in a deep breath, ears red and not looking her in the eye, a sure sign that he was more than a little upset.

“I have our children’s safety at the absolute forefront of my thoughts,” he said hotly, “And I’ll kindly request you don’t suggest otherwise. It was only a temporary solution, and one borne of absolute dire emergency. Tina, you know I’d never put them at risk. Dougal is the safest of our creatures and he is mobile enough to help them. I didn’t see anything wrong with leaving them in his capable hands for a few moments.”

Tina chewed on her tongue, slightly mollified, but still wanting to make it abundantly clear to Newt that she disagreed with his assertion that the children would be fine. 

“They’re in a phase where they eat pretty much anything put in front of them,” She said, with a forced (and slightly felt) calm. “Luckily for us, it happened to be each other this time around,” she noticed Newt’s confusion, and showed him the red teeth marks on both children’s arms. “But it could have easily been any of the coins, or shiny rocks that the nifflers were pretty much throwing at them! Look, I know we usually leave em out in the clearing while we’re doing work – but one of us is always with them – because they are babies. And not creatures – proper, human babies and they need us to actually be within shouting distance in case things go wrong.”

She stopped, Corvin had tugged on her hair particularly hard. She looked down to a pair of wide-eyed, slightly concerned looking toddlers, round baby faces puckered. Newt looked down as well, swallowing uncomfortable as their children turned faces from one parent to the other, not liking how tense the atmosphere had gotten. 

“Kiss make up,” Helena ordered, reaching across the gap and toppling towards Newt. He caught her with a practiced ease, reliving Tina of one unpredictable toddler at least. 

“Sowee,” Corvin said in a similar ordering tone, leaning across the gap towards Helena, arms outstretched. Their children hugged, before leaning back and looking up at their parents expectantly. 

“Mama papa up,” Helena repeated, brow furrowing, on hand tugging on Newt’s bowtie, the other pulling Tina closer by the necklace and attempting to hug her with one arm. Corvin copied her actions, one hand back to Tina’s hair, the other pulling on the short hair at the base of his father’s neck. 

Tina couldn’t help but chuckle, feeling a little guilty for getting upset with Newt in front of them. That their children were mimicking their usual requests to “make up” had Newt smiling as well, in the adorable little smile that always made her heart skip a little. 

“Mama and Papa make up,” She agreed quietly, leaning forward a little as Newt did the same till their foreheads touched. “Sorry for getting upset,” she whispered, “But we are talking about boundaries in the case later.”

“Looking forward to it,” Newt agreed, “And I’m sorry that I couldn’t understand why you were upset.”

They smiled a little at each other, glad they were back on the same page, with their children going “ahhh” as they participated in the peculiar group hug. 

“Ow!” Tina said suddenly, pulling her head back as Corvin’s sticky fingers tugged particularly hard at his favourite lock of hair. “No, Corvin!”

Corvin looked a little startled and then looked at his hand as if surprised that it had done something without his permission. And everything was suddenly back to normal.

“Come on,” Newt said, adjusting Helena to the other side so he could fall into step with his wife. “I’ll get dinner started, and our two wildlings can tussle it out on the floor.”

Later, they would agree a set of rules for the children in the case – rules they hadn’t quite needed while babysitting Aurie or before the youngest in the family had become more mobile. The rules were revised somewhat, over the years – as the infants became children and the children became teenagers. And when Leo joined her older siblings and cousins in the case, there was another stark conversation (with the children this time) on what the baby was allowed to do, and what she absolutely definitely was not. And “absolutely definitely was not” was expanded to include: be left in the nifflers den.


	2. Knitting for me (and for you)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tina learns how to knit, and she finds that its quite peaceful even if incredibly frustrating. 
> 
> Based on a throwaway line in Drizzle where Tina is knitting by Diana - and Diana tries to work out the pattern when Tina falls asleep (and fails because it's the No-Maj way)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of introspection as to how Tina learnt to knit in New York

It was a woman in the corner café where Tina bought her morning coffee who first suggested it. She’d been a newly re-instated auror with all the stress and pressure that came with it, and it must have shown on her face, fresh off the night shift. The café had been busy, and she dropped into the only free chair opposite a woman of her age, baby in pram, and fingers moving in mysterious ways and somehow producing a long twist of scarf. 

Tina had been exhausted, eyes burning under her lids, and the methodic clicking had been soothing. It was as if each click of the needles, each swoop and through, was taking a little more of her awful night away. 

“It’s good for helping you get to sleep at night,” The lady said suddenly, “And you sure look like you could do with some sleep honey.”

“What?” Tina had snapped out of her trance, to see the other woman smirking a little. “I’m so sorry ma’am, I’ll leave you be.”

The woman shook her head firmly, fingers not ceasing in their production. 

“I reckon I got time to help a fellow mom how to knit away the stress,” She said kindly, glancing down at her sleeping child. “You just sit right there honey, I ain’t goin’ nowhere till he needs his dinner.” 

“Oh, I ain’t a mom,” Tina winced apologetically, wondering if there was a way she could get out of the situation without feeling more awkward than Newt at dinner their first night.   
The other woman raised an eyebrow but didn’t register any surprise. In fact, she seemed strangely eager to keep talking. 

“M’names Audrey. You’re momma never teach you to knit?” She said, needles still clicking. 

“Tina,” Tina replied, moving her mug with her hands. “Er, no, my mom died when I was little, she never got the chance.”

Tina could remember needles clicking without hands producing ungainly and unattractive items before her mom had given knitting up as a bad job. She and Queenie still had the last blanket her mom had knitted, in a box pulled out when the times were particularly hard (Queenie had curled it around her shoulders when Jacob had been obliviated for almost a week). 

“I could teach ya, if you want,” She offered, and Tina wondered if there was a polite way of saying no. “Please, I ain’t got much time for conversation these days. I’ll teach ya how to knit, in exchange for a few coffees and you tellin’ me what it is that’s got you so tired at ten in the mornin’.”

Tina considered it, her eyes drawn back to the clicking of the needles and the way they seemed to echo with her heartbeat, measured and predictable. Maybe she did need a little predictable. And maybe knitting the No-Maj way would help her constant need to be busy, to have her hands occupied. She nodded slowly, and Audrey looked relieved. 

“You busy at ten tomorrow?” She asked brightly, adjusting her grip on the needles. “You’ll need to get some needles, I’ll write you some things down and you’ll need to go to Mitch’s –“

There was a rule about being friends with No-Majs, but, Tina reasoned, this wasn’t really friendship – she was just passing through. Learning to knit. 

Several months of frustration later and Tina was wondering why Audrey had lied so badly about knitting being relaxing. She dropped stitches, lost threads and had to restart more times than she cared to think about. It was so tempting, at times, to tap her knitting needles and seeing if she knitted any better as a witch than a no-maj, but she wanted to be able to master it, to master something “homely”, even if it wasn’t much. 

“Newt won’t care,” Queenie had said, as kindly as she could, “You could be an absolute disaster in all things domestic and he wouldn’t care a peep. And you aren’t a disaster, you just need practice.”

So, practice she did. And slowly, so slowly, she began to get better. She didn’t realise this until she finished a scarf and found that all stitches were where they were meant to be, and she was confident now, even if she wasn’t fast. After that, knitting became less of a battle. 

And then Audrey announced that she and her husband were moving to New Jersey, that she had appreciated the friendship, that she was glad she had been able to help Tina learn how to knit (even if it did seem awfully stressful at the phone company). Tina found herself missing Audrey when she was gone, even as she’d promised herself not to get too close. Her knitting kept getting more accurate, even if not necessarily faster, and she found her fingers twisting yellow and dark grey into stripes. 

Socks were her next challenge, but she wanted to finish her scarf first. She hadn’t realised the significance until Newt arrived back in a flurry of cold weather, and she’d met him at the docks with a yellow and grey scarf that near matched his own. 

“Oh,” She’d replied faintly to him, “I started knitting. It’s… surprisingly peaceful.”

That evening, she’d sat down next to him on the sofa, picked up her needles and started knitting the socks for Jacob she’d promised Queenie. It took Queenie giggling for Tina to look up, Newt startling himself out of a trance, book hanging limply in his hand, his entire focus on the clicking of Tina’s needles as they shaped something out of nothing. 

“You were right,” Newt said, faintly surprised, “That is remarkably peaceful, watching someone knit.”

Knitting was annoying, but it was comforting. Her fingers made patterns that she barely needed to think about, leaving her mind free to think about other things. And it helped, as she imagined her stress as strands, and the strands being woven into her makes, each one becoming weaker the more she knitted. She knitted Newt a dragon and sent it by owl post, warning him that it was the only dragon she wanted to see in his case. When she started travelling with him almost a year later, she found the wonky stuffed toy perched in his potting shed, propped up by a collection of notebooks and a handbook on dragons. 

As the years passed, her knitting got better – not necessarily faster, but she wasn’t aiming for speed. She knitted to let her mind go calm, just for a few moments. She knitted for the same reasons that Newt would doodle billywigs in the margins and send them whizzing across the page. It was something peaceful. 

For Aurie’s birth, she knitted a blanket. She did the same for Helena. When Queenie unexpectedly gave birth to twins, she had to resort to magic to help her create a second blanket in time for her own baby’s blanket to be used. Corvin’s blanket was dark grey with yellow trim, and it suited him perfectly. She learnt how to knit jumpers smaller and socks tiny, knitting to keep up with the speed her two children seemed to burst through the seams. She sent them all off to Hogwarts with patchwork blankets – to remind them of home. 

Leo was a clumsy child, and Tina ended up making her several teddies with imbued charms to make it resistant to almost everything her daughter would get into, jumpers with buoyancy and waterproof socks that turned blue when Leo needed to return to her parents. She turned her knitting into her own brand of care, and she found a sense of satisfaction as a jumper appeared before her very eyes. She knitted scarves for mooncalves in winter, hats for her children, and gloves for the demiguise. 

People were always surprised that Tina knitted. Perhaps it was her prickly nature, or maybe they just assumed that because she was an auror she wasn’t accomplished in anything that wasn’t directly related to her job. But she liked knitting for the repetition, for the moments of peace it gave her in a chaotic and dark world. She taught Corvin, Helena and Leona – and then their unexpected youngest son. She taught her grandchildren – all six of them, and when the youngest of her youngest bought home a young woman with radish earrings and eyes pained and hopeful like theirs…well, she taught her too.


End file.
